1 John 3:10

1 John 3:10. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither ha that loveth not his brother. Three things are observable here. First, this conclusion of the whole matter shows that the apostle's predominant aim has been to establish clearly the signs and tokens by which the world may be distinguished from the church. The ‘manifest' is not to the eye of God alone, though to His supremely and infallibly, but to all who have eyes to see. The ‘doing sin' and the ‘doing righteousness' are the works of the ‘children of God' by regeneration, and ‘the children of the devil' by imitation. St. John knows no third class; and the fact that he speaks of the broad characters that stamp the two must throw its influence back upon the interpretation of all that precedes. Secondly, he makes it plain that his chief polemic is against the spurious Christians who strove to reconcile knowledge of Christ with relaxed morality. And, thirdly, he introduces at the close the idea of ‘brotherly love,' not as strictly synonymous with righteousness, but yet as in a certain sense the pith and compendium of it. This point is now taken up in what follows.